


Till Sickness Comes

by foolishgames



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Nile is in charge of mortal stuff, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26829532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolishgames/pseuds/foolishgames
Summary: Health is not valued till sickness comes - Thomas FullerAndy gets sick. Her team take care of her.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	Till Sickness Comes

**Author's Note:**

> First posted at the kink meme: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4011.html?thread=1338539#cmt1338539

Andy has been sleeping more, her newly-mortal body taking more energy and time to recover from things she’s always shrugged off before, so nobody’s much surprised when she doesn’t turn up for breakfast.  
  
Mornings are scattered things, in any case, when they aren’t on a job. Nicky’s a morning person, one of the very terrible ones who goes running before the sun is up and sighs happily over his fresh-squeezed orange juice, looking all flushed and smug; Joe is decidedly doleful until he’s gotten some food and a shower and to whine for a bit. Nile falls somewhere between. She’s often up early, military habits still too ingrained to lie around, but she’s happy to chill out until the rest of the world is awake. Sometimes she goes running with Nicky, but often she stays in, especially right now - they’re in Sweden, and it’s winter, and it’s colder that it has any goddamned right to be. Nile is a Chicago kid. When your eyelashes freeze, you just don’t go outside if it can be avoided.  
  
Andy staggers out at what’s probably around lunchtime, and slumps as far as the kitchen table before her legs seem to give out. Her face is pale and a bit sweaty, her eyes are reddened, and she’s breathing with her mouth open and looking furious about it.  
  
“You okay, boss?” says Nicky cautiously.  
  
Andy glares and tugs the blanket she’s wearing as a cape higher. “Fine.”  
  
Joe and Nicky trade glances, but Nile’s the one to say “You look like shit, Andy.”  
  
“Fuck off,” says Andy, but it comes out as “ _Fug of_ ,” and she gives a great honking sniffle afterwards.  
  
Nile puts a hand to Andy’s head. The fact that Andy doesn’t immediately break her arm is more concerning than the warmth rolling off her skin. She’s running a temp, but not too bad. “You’re a bit hot,” says Nile. “Headache? Sore throat? Stomach?”  
  
Andy scowls. “Yes.”  
  
“Yes, what? All of it?”  
  
She slumps into a dispirited puddle. “My bones hurt. And my face.” Another trumpeting sniff. “My eyes are leaking.”  
  
Nile looks around. Joe and Nicky both look - not precisely alarmed, but perhaps a bit lost. “I don’t suppose you keep your safehouses stocked with ibuprofen?” she wonders aloud.  
  
“Is that a drug?” says Joe. “No.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s - you know what, this can wait. Andy, have a drink of something. Not coffee.” Behind Andy, Nicky makes a series of urgent faces. “Or booze, Christ. Water or tea. Then take a shower, it’ll help clear your head, and then go back to bed. I gotta go to the store.”  
  
“I will come,” says Nicky immediately. “You can show me what we need for next time, so we can stock the other safehouses.”  
  
“Great, you can get the groceries too,” says Nile. “Joe, I’m serious, don’t give her coffee, it’ll make her headache ten times worse.”  
  
“I will not be babied,” Andy croaks. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Stand up long enough to shower and change your bedsheets and we’ll talk,” says Nile.  
  
Nicky drives to the store, because Nile hates driving in the snow. The radio mutters in Swedish, and Nile works on picking out bits of vocabulary she’s learning and making up stories to fill in the rest.  
  
“I don’t need to be worried about Andy, do I?” says Nicky. He’s doing a very good job of sounding unconcerned, but his mouth is a little pinched.  
  
“For a little bout of flu? Nah.”  
  
Nicky startles a bit. “Influenza?” he says carefully.  
  
“No, not like - it’s probably just a bug. If she has the flu, there are treatments now. It’s super unusual for someone healthy to die of it.” She pats him on the arm. “She’s fine, dude. Let’s get some good soup for her, she’ll need her fluids.”  
  
Nicky takes the directive seriously, peeling off when they reach the small shopping centre into the grocery store, leaving Nile to navigate the pharmacy alone.  
  
Ibuprofen is easy enough to find, and what’s called paracetamol here in Europe. She gets a big packet of each, and then wanders around putting together a sort of half-hearted first aid/home health kit. The decongestants you can’t make meth out of, and the painkillers you can’t make heroin out of: she’s sure one of the others has a contact they could get the good stuff from, but off-the-shelf will do for now. Antacids, antihistamines, cough drops and eye drops, creams for burns, rashes and bites. Bandaids - kiddie ones with Black Widow on them - and bandages: sterile gauze in various sizes, medical tape, sterile strips, ace bandages, soft linens for slings and wrapping. Ice packs that can be hot packs, needle-fine tweezers, blunt-tipped scissors, gloves, alcohol and antiseptic swabs in single-use packets.  
  
The cashier’s eyebrows go up as she checks Nile’s purchases out. Nile gives her a bland smile and Joe’s credit card.  
  
Nicky is debating over parsnips when Nile catches up with him, even though she detoured to unload her things into the car. “I already have carrots and potatoes, and I don’t want to put too many roots in,” he says, “but it will set off the dill nicely.”  
  
  
“Don’t overthink it,” she says. “If Andy’s sinuses are blocked, she won’t be tasting much for a while. Hot and salty will be about all.”  
  
“Hot and salty I can do,” says Nicky.  
  
“That’s what _she_ said,” says Nile, and Nicky sighs but obligingly taps his fist against hers when she waggles her eyebrows.  
  
Turns out Nicky’s planning soup from scratch - he’s picked up a whole chicken and pile of vegetables and herbs. Nile drags him down a few more aisles for the sick-day classics: dry crackers, ginger beer, gatorade and eggs.  
  
“You are going to have to be in charge of mortal things for a while,” says Nicky as they load stuff onto the conveyor. “Andy will not ask for help. It will not occur to her.”  
  
“Fortunately,” says Nile, “Andy’s real shit at hiding when she needs help.”  
  
“We are all unused to discomfort lingering more than a moment,” Nicky allows. “And we have no -” he pauses, rubs a hand over his mouth. “We have no _metric_ for what is bad,” he says. “Is it a bad headache, a bad cough, a bad injury? Bad enough to seek help? To need treatment? When I was a child, even a mild fever could quickly become deadly, a small wound easily infected.”  
  
“I know,” says Nile. “I got you, no worries.” She lists sideways to bump against his side, and he obligingly tucks an arm around her. He’s wearing a nice soft knitted sweater, and he smells good.  
  
“We are glad,” he says and smacks a kiss to the side of her head before disentangling to collect their bagged groceries.  
  
Joe has changed the sheets when they get back, and cleaned the kitchen, and put on the gas heater that’s pretending to be a wood fire in the living room, and Andy is sacked out on the couch with her shower-damp hair soaking a big wet patch onto Joe’s thigh.  
  
“Sorry I can’t get up and help unpack,” he says quietly. “I am very busy and important.”  
  
Nile flicks the box of ibuprofen at his head. “Get two of those in her, if you can,” she says. “And if her sinuses are still hurting, I’ve got decongestants. Did she eat?”  
  
“Drank some tea,” says Joe, examining the blister packs with an air of bemusement. “But she wasn’t hungry.”  
  
“That’s fine, fluids are more important,” says Nile. “Those taste nasty, by the way, she’ll want water.” Nicky brings some, and then sets about the chicken with an alarmingly sized knife.  
  
Later, when Andy is a little more awake and something amazing-smelling is simmering away on the stove and Joe has gotten some extra woolly blankets from the linen cupboard, Nile makes eggs with toast soldiers for dipping and tells them about having chicken pox as a kid at the same time as her dad, staying home from school on the couch and watching shitty daytime tv together and taking oatmeal baths for the itching.  
  
“My mama would give me grappa when I had a cough,” Nicky recalls suddenly. “I don’t know if it worked, but I slept well.”  
  
Joe chokes with laughter. “Tiny Nicky, too drunk for coughing.” He’s picking through the medicines, carefully reading each label. “My mama would rub me down with sheep lard as if to roast me.”  
  
Andy hacks out a dry cough. “There was a tea we would drink for coughs, sometimes,” she says. “I think only in autumn and winter. The plants weren’t always around.” She takes a swig of gatorade and wrinkles her nose. “This isn’t the same.”  
  
“There’ll be soup, later,” says Nile. “You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”


End file.
